Filling the Cracks
by Splintered Star
Summary: Post-TWS. Natasha goes by the grave, sometimes. Maybe she's looking for reasons. (Maybe not, but she gets them anyway.)


Natasha comes by his tombstone sometimes, whenever she's in the area and it's not being swarmed by cameras. Hill had to fight for a week to get a place in Arlington despite his military record, both always-public and recently-released, but the end was never in doubt. Anyone who called Fury uncompromising never met Maria Hill.

She's glad Hill went to the effort, for the record (and that phrase makes her laugh under her breath, a little bit, now.) It's a symbolic gesture, maybe, but symbols are important. She knows that better than anyone, except maybe for him.

Besides, Natasha thinks as she settles against the tree, it's a nice spot. Shaded, quiet, away from any of the more famous graves or anyone he'd hate to spend eternity with. (Half of her mind scans it for lines of sight, defensive positions and potential cover, and she's still satisfied.) It's peaceful. She likes it here, and thinks he probably would too.

"You know I'm not in there, right?"

Natasha smirks, turning her head to look at the man leaning on the side of the tree next to her. He's as incognito as she is, his signature coat lost in the car crash and his eye patch abandoned shortly after. He grows his beard out, now, and the grey makes him look older. But more than clothing, he's changed his mannerisms, dropped the aura of power and authority that defined him to the world. (Her method of defense has always been to make herself look like she wasn't a threat, be invisible - but a black man doesn't have the option of looking harmless, so he made himself terrifying instead.)

There are a lot of things she could say. She could deflect and he'd allow it, lie and he'd accept it. (It's been years since she's lied to him, at least when it mattered.)

"Just checking," she finally says, looking back to the grave with a shrug. It's teasing and it's deflection and it's honesty, and out of the corner of her eye she sees him incline his head in acknowledgement. She doesn't look at his expression. She's not sure she wants to know what it is.

The knowledge rests heavily between them, not a barrier but a wound that didn't heal quite right. She's not angry he didn't tell her he was alive; she is very rarely angry at anything. (She thinks that emotion was removed, at some point, and has never bothered to try and reclaim it or figure out when it happened.) She is - something, when she thinks of it. Not angry. Not sad. Not betrayed, or insecure, or upset. (All of them, maybe.)

He knows what she means, because of course he does. She doesn't lie to him because there's no point. "Would an explanation help?"  
She thinks of grief, unfamiliar and sharp, ripping through her stomach when she saw his body - remembers the sensation of the rock she'd chosen to build herself on crumbling and tilting under her feet and leaving her in freefall. "Probably not."

"Fair enough." They stand in silence for a few minutes, two old friends at the grave of someone they both knew. She's almost grateful for the stone. Most of the major transitions in her life haven't left reminders anywhere (except on her). "I wouldn't have done it, if I didn't think you could handle it." He finally adds into the silence. She hears him shift against the tree, telegraphing his movements, but she doesn't look over. "I needed someone active and free to move, who I knew would do what needed to be done."

A hand lands on her shoulder, a glove hiding the gun callouses and old scars she knows to be there. She doesn't flinch at the touch, but she does look over to him.

Nick Fury looks at her with something that, on someone else, might be called fondness (or pride). "You did good, kid."

Natasha takes a deep breath around the sudden warmth in her throat, smiles at him through the pressure in her eyes. The explanation didn't help. That did. She closes her hand over his and squeezes, once.

Eventually, she smirks and lets go of his hand. "Trained by the best, old man." They both know she doesn't mean spying. He laughs, under his breath, and starts to walk away from his tomb without a backwards glance.

(They both know she means "thank you.")


End file.
